Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial)

by Schwartz, David J.

  “This smoothie is terrible,” said Selma. “She never could cook. Look at how fat that salamander is. She probably eats all of her meals out of her MagicWave.”

  Joy knew it was a joke, but laughing didn’t seem appropriate, so she forced a smile instead.

  “I think you should focus on the fact that you’re here,” she said. “Focus on getting strong. We’ll see if we can find your sister.”

  Selma didn’t nod, but she also didn’t argue.

  The paramedics came in. One of them checked Selma’s vitals while Joy spoke to the other. “It’s my belief that she’s been in a magical coma of a sort,” she said. “She’s very weak.”

  If this was an unusual layman’s diagnosis, the paramedic gave no sign. “Probably malnourished. We’ll take good care of her.”

  Joy watched them work for a moment. Selma waved, so Joy waved back, then made her way toward the front of the house just in time to meet AD Flood and Agent Gray coming inside.

  Flood spoke to Agent Brooks first. “We found your limousine, but no assassins.”

  Piper shrugged. “My orders are to stay with Wilkins, sir. I’m sorry I was unable to secure the suspects.”

  Flood frowned but didn’t argue the point. “What did you find?” he asked Joy.

  “We found Ingrid’s sister, alive and in…satisfactory condition,” she said. “She just woke up. She doesn’t seem to have any memory of anything over the past six months, including the attack.”

  “Where is she?”

  Joy was surprised at how protective she was feeling of the woman in the kitchen, whom she had just met. “The paramedics are with her,” she said. “She doesn’t know anything. She did find this note, though.”

  Flood snatched the note away from her and read it. “Jesus Christ. The sister is a lunatic. Or was.”

  “I think she was depressed. I also think she saved her sister’s life, possibly at the cost of her own. I’d say that’s foolhardy, sure, but not exactly lunatic behavior.”

  Flood stepped closer to her. Joy held her ground.

  “You really don’t like me, do you, Wilkins? If I said the sun was hot, you’d want to use it to cool your drinks. That’s fine. And if you want to admire a woman who put thousands of people at risk on the off chance that she could bring a family member back in the process, that’s your prerogative. Maybe it’s inconvenient for you to remember that we have summoning laws in this country. That the very rituals and materials she used to accomplish this little miracle have been banned.”

  “Sir, I think she learned those rituals in our Special Forces.”

  “Good point, Wilkins.” Flood’s tone was sarcastic. “Gray, tell my office to get DOD on the phone. They might want to charge Ingwiersen too.”

  Gray gave Joy a bored look and didn’t make any calls.

  Flood just stared at Joy for a minute. His breath smelled like tuna.

  “I really wonder, Wilkins, if you’re even cut out for this job. What are you prepared to do to keep it? What are you prepared to do to guarantee the safety of the American people?”

  “Whatever it takes, sir.” Joy knew it was the answer he wanted to hear; she was less sure whether it was the truth. She glanced at Gray, but his aura betrayed nothing.

  Flood stopped one of the paramedics coming back down the hall. “What hospital are you taking her to?”

  “Lakeview.”

  “I want you and Gray to go with them,” Flood said to Joy as the paramedic continued toward the front door. “Zelda Akbulut is down there—she was a witness to what happened on that roof down there. Find out what she knows.”

  “Sir, I’m not clear on what happened on the roof down there myself.”

  “There was a Heartstopper apparatus set up on top of a restaurant—what’s it called?”

  “The Mandrake,” said Gray.

  “Right. The owner and Hector Ay went off the roof. The owner’s dead, and Hector Ay is in surgery. Akbulut and a waitress were the only witnesses. Talk to them both. And get some good answers, because you and I are going to have another long talk before you sleep tonight.”

  ***

  Sitting in the waiting area of the ER at Lakeview Hospital, Ken and Simone watched as Joy Wilkins walked in with a couple of paramedics, a good-looking white man in a tracksuit, and a woman in a wheelchair who very much resembled Ingrid Ingwiersen. Joy made brief eye contact with Ken but otherwise ignored him as her group spoke to the duty nurse and were ushered into the examination rooms.

  “That can’t have been Ingrid’s sister, can it?” asked Simone.

  Ken shrugged. He could speak if he had to, but it hurt. He wondered if he was going to sound permanently gravelly now. His father had had a gravelly sort of voice, particularly when he was speaking Korean. Ken hadn’t thought about him in a long time.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Simone asked. Ken shook his head and smiled at her. People who didn’t know Simone well thought of her as nurturing, even motherly. She might be those things, but mostly she was a doer. She hated to sit still, and doing things for other people was a way for her to keep busy.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she said. “This has been the worst week I can remember—the worst since Hilda died, certainly. I’m just sitting here trying to figure out what I feel worst about: Bebe, Ingrid, Larch, Carla Drake, Martin…or poor Philip.”

  Ken knew that Simone and Martin Shil had been involved to some degree some time ago, but Simone had never given him any details. Their friendship was unbalanced in that respect; Ken told Simone everything, sometimes too much. Simone was a good listener, albeit an occasionally scandalized one, but she was not, by nature, a confider. Sometimes, when she and Yves were together, they would reminisce about their upbringing—they were second-generation members of the Thirteenth Rib, their parents having been magic-using bohemians who came to the hinterlands of Minnesota at Hilda Ruiz’s invitation. They had made their living as stage illusionists before they taught at Gooseberry Bluff, but their real power—at least that of their mother—was in transformation magic. Simone would tell stories about her parents’ outrageous behavior for hours, but she rarely had a complete sentence to offer about herself.

  “You don’t think Bebe is right, do you? About it being hopeless?”

  Ken shook his head. It wasn’t hopeless. It wasn’t exactly the fight he had signed up for, either, all those years ago. But Ken was stubborn enough to keep fighting, and he knew Simone was too. He reached over and squeezed her hand for support.

  “You didn’t…” Simone trailed off, so Ken raised an eyebrow in question. “You and Lutrineas. You didn’t…?”

  Ken couldn’t help laughing at her prim way of phrasing such a salacious question, and laughing made him cough. Simone hurriedly handed him a glass of water. He sipped it and then motioned for a pad and paper.

  DID YOU JUST ASK ME IF I HAD SEX WITH A GOD? he wrote.

  Simone blushed and looked around the waiting area. “I was trying to be circumspect.”

  I HAVEN’T SLEPT WITH ANYONE BUT PHILIP IN YEARS, he wrote.

  “But did you know he wasn’t Philip right away?”

  Ken nodded. “He told me,” he whispered.

  “Oh.”

  Ken had to fight back laughter at her expression.

  “What?”

  IF YOU’RE THAT CURIOUS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO SLEEP WITH A GOD, WHY DON’T YOU PROPOSITION HIM?

  Simone made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “That’s the last thing on my mind,” she said. “A normal man is confusing enough. A trickster would be…well, I can’t even imagine.”

  LUTRINEAS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A MAN, YOU KNOW. HE’S A SHAPECHANGER.

  “I am aware,” she said. Her tone indicated that she was about to lose patience with him, but he couldn’t resist getting in the last word:

  YOU ASKED.

  “Yes, and that’s always a mistake with you. I should know by now.” She turned her head away, then turned it back. “You know, I di
dn’t even get a chance to ask you—did they attack you again? Before Bebe did?”

  Ken looked around the waiting area to make sure no one was hearing their conversation. He couldn’t imagine what they might make of it if they did, but the fact that Bebe had tried to kill him and was currently tied up in the library at the McMonigal Arms and not in a cell at the Gooseberry Bluff Sheriff’s Department was irregular, to say the least.

  I WAS ATTACKING THEM, he wrote.

  “Why?”

  BECAUSE I’M TIRED OF BEING THE DOOR; I WANTED TO TAKE A TURN AS THE BATTERING RAM.

  “Aren’t you afraid they’re going to retaliate, though?”

  I’M NOT AFRAID THEY WILL; I KNOW THEY WILL. THIS DUEL HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR SO LONG THAT I THINK I’M STARTING TO EXPERIENCE WHAT MY OPPONENTS EXPERIENCE. I CRAVE WHAT THEY EAT. I’M TIRED WHEN THEY ARE. THEY’RE CONSERVING THEIR ENERGY NOW, GATHERING IT FOR ANOTHER ASSAULT. MAYBE THE FINAL ONE.

  “You experience what they experience?”

  Ken nodded.

  “You think that goes both ways, then?”

  He shrugged.

  “Is that your reason for drinking so much wine that you can’t even stand? You think your opponent is going to pass out before you do?”

  Ken placed the pad and pen carefully on the table in front of him, next to a copy of People magazine. He folded his arms.

  “Oh, I see. You can make light of the fact that I’m so deep in my spinsterhood that I wonder what it might be like to eff the ineffable, but we still can’t discuss the fact that you have a drinking problem.”

  Ken wondered just how long they were going to have to wait for a doctor to see them. He waited for as long as his conscience would allow before he picked up the pad again and wrote: I WASN’T MAKING LIGHT.

  “Yes you were. And I was letting you, because our colleague of twenty-five years just tried to kill you. But Ken, if it were just you and your drinking, I’d be concerned, and I’d want you to get help. But it’s you, and your drinking, and the fate of the planet, and it scares me and it makes me want to slap you.”

  I HAVE IT UNDER CONTROL. LAST NIGHT WAS A MISTAKE.

  “More than a mistake. You know Philip hates it when you drink like that.”

  PHILIP ISN’T HERE.

  “Yes, I know. Do you think that drinking is going to help bring him back?”

  FOR GOD’S SAKE, SIMONE. STOP TALKING LIKE AN AFTER-SCHOOL SPECIAL.

  “Then stop living in one.”

  ***

  Margaret May sat on the white paper of an exam table, still wearing her waitress’s apron bulging with pens and order pads. The girl had been treated for shock, but she was otherwise unhurt. Her eyes had gone wide when Joy told her she worked for the FBMA, and they hadn’t returned to normal size yet.

  “You’re in Professor Ay’s 101 class, is that right?” Joy asked.

  Margaret nodded. “Yeah.” Her eyes went watery. “Is he going to be…?”

  Joy glanced at Gray. He had spoken with a member of Hector’s surgical team while Joy was explaining Selma’s situation to her doctors.

  “They’re doing a spectral reconstruction of his broken bones,” said Gray. “It’s going to be a while. Those kind of operations are very strenuous for the patient and the surgeons both. But the surgeon I spoke with seemed optimistic.”

  Margaret watched Gray as he spoke, and then for a little while longer. “I shouldn’t be thinking about my grades and my homework,” she said. “But I am.”

  “This is a lot to process,” said Joy. “Are you sure you don’t mind answering questions?”

  “I guess not. So, you’re a fed, huh? Cool.”

  “Well, I’ve been working undercover.”

  “Awesome,” said Margaret, in a tone that made it impossible to tell whether she thought it was awesome or not. Maybe Joy could ask Gray about it later.

  “What did you want to know?” Margaret went on.

  Joy ran her through the scene at the restaurant, from the time Stolas appeared to when Chuck and Hector fell off the roof. Talking about the fall upset her, but not as much as the cauldron of human blood and fat. Her account was detailed, and Gray didn’t speak up or ask for clarification for any of Margaret’s answers.

  “So then Ms. Akbulut ran down to the street while you called an ambulance?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re doing great, Margaret. Now I have some questions about Chuck. How long did you work for him?”

  “About a week.” Margaret let out a breath. “I guess I’m probably not working there anymore. Probably no one is, huh?”

  “Hard to say right now,” said Joy. “It’ll be closed for the weekend, at least. What was your impression of Chuck?”

  “I don’t know, he wasn’t really around that much, I guess? A few times he was in the kitchen when I came through, talking to the cooks. I guess he was a chef. Sometimes he’d be locked in his office. He wasn’t mean or anything.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know anything else. Just…what we found on the roof.”

  Joy glanced at Gray, who shrugged. Joy took that to mean that what the girl said was more or less true. She could press the girl, maybe, but there were probably other employees who could give them more insight into the goings-on behind the scenes at the Mandrake.

  “OK, Margaret. Do you need a ride home?”

  “Um, I guess so. We portalled here, and I don’t even know where we are, exactly.”

  “I’ll talk to the sheriff’s office about getting you a ride,” said Gray. He slipped through the curtain, and Joy was left alone with the girl.

  “Professor Wilkins? I mean, Instructor. I mean—”

  “What is it, Margaret?”

  “There’s something I didn’t want to mention before, because it’s personal?”

  “All right.”

  “I mentioned that I was talking to a customer when Professor Ay and Professor Acubutt—Akbullet—”

  “Akbulut, yes. You were talking to someone when they came in.”

  “Yeah. He—he said he was your brother.”

  Joy leaned forward with such intent that Margaret flinched. “What were his exact words?”

  “He said, ‘Tell Professor Wilkins that her brother Trevor was here, and that he said she should talk to Dad.’ ”

  Joy had to restrain herself from following her initial impulse, which was to get up and shake the girl. “Those were his exact words?”

  “I’m pretty sure. I mean, this was in the middle of the whole giant owl thing, and right after that was the whole…cauldron of fat thing. That’s how I remember it, anyway.”

  Trevor couldn’t possibly have been in Gooseberry Bluff, could he? And he certainly wouldn’t have told her to talk to their dead father. On the other hand, Margaret had no reason to make up such a thing.

  “Sorry if I got it wrong,” said Margaret.

  “It’s OK, Margaret. Like you said, there’s been a lot going on tonight.”

  “So I guess I shouldn’t tell anyone you’re undercover?”

  “No, we would prefer you didn’t. Actually, there’s a release I need you to sign,” Joy said. “I think Agent Gray brought a copy. It’s…there’s a geas attached, Margaret. I’m sorry about that, but it’s necessary for reasons of national security.”

  “Yeah, cool. Whatever,” said Margaret. “So what kind of grades do you need to get a job like that?”

  ***

  Zelda kept thinking that she should leave. Hector’s crystal had survived the fall, but every time she tried to call his emergency contact she just irritated a Spanish-speaking woman more. She had already left a message for Edith Grim-Parker at the school. One of the nurses had said Hector would probably be in surgery until sunrise, if not longer, and that he wouldn’t be conscious for quite a while after that.

  If he regained consciousness, that was.

  It was the fact that it was her fault that he had nearly died, though, that had made Zelda decide to leave numerous times. If she had
been convinced that sitting here hoping he came out of surgery all right was helping, she would have gone. But it was just sitting. Hoping wasn’t helping.

  She was about to get up when a man in a tracksuit approached her. “Zelda Akbulut?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Agent Gray, and I’m with the FBMA. We’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened at the Mandrake. Do you mind?”

  Zelda glanced at the door to the operating rooms. “Um. I’m not sure this is a good time.”

  “I spoke to one of the surgeons,” said Agent Gray. “She seemed optimistic. He survived the fall; that says a lot. But he’s going to be in surgery for a few more hours.”

  Zelda stood. “I don’t know if I can help you.” She almost said, I don’t know if I should help you, but she suspected he would take that the wrong way. She didn’t have the energy to explain the curse to him anyway.

  Agent Gray led her toward the entrance, stopping off at a door marked security. Inside there was a room with a security guard behind a counter, and opposite that were two smaller rooms that looked very much like the interview rooms Zelda had seen on cop shows, minus the one-way mirrors and the crystal hologram recorder-projectors. Agent Gray motioned for her to precede him into one of them.

  Inside, Joy Wilkins was already sitting in a chair.

  “Hi, Zelda,” she said. “I’m sorry to have to do this now, but time is of the essence.”

  Zelda blinked at her, still unsure of what was happening.

  “I’m sorry about Hector too. I…I can answer your questions about him now.” Joy motioned toward the chair to her right. “Please sit down.”

  Zelda sat. Agent Gray shut the door and leaned against it.

  “So,” said Joy. “I may as well reintroduce myself. My name is Joy Wilkins, and I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs. I apologize for the deception.”

  “I…OK,” said Zelda, because she didn’t know whether or not to accept the apology.

  “Hector knew. We spoke to him about a week ago,” said Joy.

  “He seems like a good guy,” said Agent Gray.